The Penrose Triangle
by TheUncannySapiens
Summary: "You killed the children last", Gibbs stated, pushing two of the pictures closer to her. - As her past is once again catching up to her, Ziva is accused of a horrendous crime... and it is her confession that threatens to tear the team apart. But is everything really as it seems? At least to Gibbs it is, while McGee & Abby uncover a dark secret - casefic, character study, Tiva-free
1. Weregild

**The Penrose Triangle**

* * *

Disclaimer: It goes without saying that I do not own _NCIS_. I guess it belongs to the_ CBS Television Studios_ and probably _Belisarius Productions_. As a sad matter of fact I don't own as much as a single TV show out there, but if you've got one left over you're very welcome to hand it down to me. It will be loved and tenderly cared for!

_Easter, 1916_ was written by the Irish author William Butler Yeats as his reaction/perception to/of the Easter Risings on 4/24/1916. It was first published in 1921.

_The Penrose Trangle_ was created by the Swedish graphic artist Oskar Reutersvärd in 1934.

The Cover Picture is obviously not mine. I would like to add though that this is NOT a real child solider. It's a screenshot from the shortfilm _War School_ but when looking up things about child soliders tons of "real" pictures (in the sense that those children were actually soliders, not actors) appeared, so I want to clarify that I would not use any of those. Putting that and fanfiction together would not seem tasteful.

A/N: With that being said - hey there, my dear reader! This is my first _NCIS_ fanfiction and even though it may strike you as somewhat odd now I can assure you that it will make sense eventually. I'm not sure what the entire plot is going to look like yet, but I've settled quite a lot of it so far and it seems logical. My dialogues and discriptions are weird because I am a weirdo myself and this being the first chapter I was feeling a little iffy about how to start it all off... so that's what I came up with.

Nevertheless, I devoutly hope that the one or other fellow _NCIS_ fan is going to read and maybe even enjoy this. I would also be grateful for every sort of review, feedback or criticism you may give, but afer all it's up to you so... leave a note if you feel like it, or don't. It's not like I'm writing reviews to every story -let alone every chapter- that I read up here.

Spoiler Alter/ Orientation: I wrote this chapter in December and then caught up in a bunch of other stuff. There's another story I've been writing for months now, with some tangled-up post-Somalia-stuff, Eli David returning, Tony whump, a major conspirancy going on... and then -bahm! just like that- _Shabbat_ _Shalom _happens. So this story is set somewhere between mid-Season-7 and 10x11 but there is, for instance, no Ray (neither in the present nor in the past). I might incorporate some other aspects though. I'm picky on that source. ^^

* * *

**Chapter One: Weregild**

* * *

Too long a sacrifice

Can make a stone of the heart.

O when may it suffice?

[William Butler Yeats, _Easter 1916_]

* * *

She had always thought of Gibbs as a very centered man. Not at all self-centered that was, but simply straight to the point. Resting. It was a matter of fact that she could not think of a man that was _less_ self-centered than Gibbs. He was a patriot and a family man. He believed in those whom he loved and he lived for what he believed in. He believed in her, she knew it even though it didn't look like it now. She also knew that he sometimes believed in things more than he should; held on to them way beyond reason.

He crossed the interrogation room with quick, eager steps and sat down at the other side of the table, facing her in the manner she knew well but could barely stand now. Eyebrows furrowed, strangely becoming but deep and defined wrinkles on his forehead. Hands in front of him on the table in a way that said _it's okay_ not because there was still hope, but because of _him_, who could take care of everything.

She looked at him and it was the first thing she noticed. Yes, he was _centered_ in his own strange way, always able to cut straight to chase of the issue. And, yes, he had still not lost faith in her. Once again he should know better, but refused to aknowledge that it was wasted. There was a mess and not Ziva nor anyone else out there could ever clean it up. Not Gibbs or Tony, even though she was somewhat certain that they'd do it in the blink of an eye if they had the chance to. They had gone far for her, so they'd probably go further, if not eventually a step too far. And Abby and McGee would probably follow them straight into the grave that doing anything for her now would inevitably dig them.

"Come on, Ziva, talk to me."

His eyes rested heavily upon her but her lips remained sewn shut. Not only was he centered, he was also a center himself. You could rely on him being there. Now, this was a comfort she'd henceforth have to bid farewell to. She had lost a family before - heck, she had lost _this_ family before. She could survive without them and they'd do fine with her gone as well. It wasn't truly as hard as it seemed. They'd probably struggle, but manage alright and move on.

"No", Ziva said under her breath, imperceptibly shaking her head, "I'm sorry, but I can't."

His answer sounded harsh, but she knew this wasn't how he felt - yet. "Don't take me for an idiot, we know pretty darn well what happened!"

"Then there is nothing further that I have to tell you." Denying him a valuable answer was much easier now. There was nothing to lose, and with nothing to lose she could go back to her roots and rely on what her mind and body were capable of even without having to remember. She could keep to herself whatever could just not -under no circumstances whatsoever- as much as cross somebody else's mind.

"Of course there is!"

"I have nothing to tell you."

"Goddammit, just spill it out and we'll see-"

"But _what_ do you wish to hear that would _change_ anything?", she snapped, having lost composure for just a moment before she almost automatically returned to the severe self-control she had obtained in the course of a lifetime. Inwardly cursing herself, she added her last words in a much quieter voice. "Because there's nothing new that I could tell you. I... I can't explain, Gibbs. Even if I wanted to, I couldn't. You'll simply have to live that."

He sighed and opened a thin, lightbrown folder he had brought to the room with him. Slowly, one sheet after another, he took out a number of full-page photos and lined them up in front of her. She rested her eyes on each of them right away. They couldn't hurt her. She had once left a worse part of herself behind, but as it turned out it had taken her not even hours to replace it, now that it was direly needed. Reflexively, all of the victims lost their meaning. Some of it had always remained in her and now it'd simply have to grow again.

It reminded her of the times when she had done worse things, killed people in ways compared to which the family on the pictures in front of her had died a thankfully humane death. Long, thin cuts littered the pale but otherwise flawless skin of the older girl's face. She had been nine years old, a Nancy Drew fan and her own blood adhered her hair to sticky, thick strains. Her brother -five, soccer player, aspiring first-grader- had been spared most of the pain. Ziva could still see the fear in his eyes, even though it had died with him, but apart from the small entrance wound on his forehead he was perfectly alright.

Her jaw tightened for a moment as she felt her stomach turned a bit. No, it wasn't easy but that she had always known.

It simply was what it was. And she was pretty sure she could take it.

"You killed the children last", Gibbs stated, pushing two of the pictures closer to her. She looked up and met his eyes for a moment. They had changed. Maybe it wasn't more than her imagination, but Ziva was certain that the stern, grave expression vanished from them to make room for the silent plea that she just _had_ to deny it, _had_ to be innocent in this matter because otherwise... otherwise, _this_ was her darkest hour, long after her service in Mossad, long after her leaving the team and returning as a different person.

Ziva took a deep breath and exhaled the air slowly. The absence of an answer was all the confirmation he needed. His voice turned cold and distant when he spoke up again. It hurt her, but not all that much. Not only had she had expected this kind of change, she had weighed up the possible outcomes and eventually come to be certain that this was the most endurable way she could take.

"Why them? How could you... _why_ did you do it? Why?"

"I cannot tell you that, Gibbs, I just _can't_."

"No... no, I know you, Ziva. I _know_ that you know right from wrong that you... that this isn't what you are. Nothing you were ever taught could justify this, _nothing_, and I thought... I was so sure... you don't _want_ to tell me and there's a big difference in there-"

With every further second that he tried to convince himself that she could indeed never commit such a crime, she saw his faith in her getting smaller and smaller until it was fully replaced by the kind of grief and anger that had last surrounded him after the loss -and reutrn- of his memory.

"I haven't been blind to this, I know that."

"You were... wrong, Gibbs. I'm sorry, but that's just the way it is."

He slowly shook his head and pushed back his chair. While he stood up he made no attempt to take the pictures back with him. She kept starting at them, mostly so she wouldn't have to look at Gibbs again. "Fine. You don't want to explain, I can live without an explanation."

They both knew he wasn't telling the truth.

After all, there were two liars sitting in this room.

* * *

A/N#2: I know this chapter was rather short. The next one is going to be longer and offer more of a plot and explanation. As I said... a review would be nice, just so I know whether this is any good or not worth my time and disk space.

Anyways, I hope it's been okay and that some people will return to this story. Rehardless of reviews or not, that is. I guess the "Traffic Stats" are false, but still... I'm rambling. Have a good day! ;)

In case anybody's inbterested or wants to know about the sources I use, here's a link to the poem I quoted. Just delete the spaces and you're all good.

Easter, 1916: theatlantic past/docs/ unbound/poetry/ soundings/easter .htm

The Easter Risings: historylearningsite . /1916 _easter_rising .htm

The Penrose Triangle: .tu-dresden .de/i1/kaw/diverses%20Material/ www. illusionwork /html/impossible _triangle .html

War School: youtube watch?v =Ivf17MJJG9


	2. Common Purpose

Disclaimer:

"A Hard Day's Night", written by John Lennon and performed by _The Beatles_, was released on July 10, 1964 and recorded with the _Abbey Road Studios, _which is currently owned by the EMI Group Ltd.

Thomas Moore was Irish poet who lived from 1779 to 1852. "The Harp That Once Through Tara's Halls" was published in "The Poetical Works of Thomas Moore".

And guess what? I still don't own NCIS, and I'm still not making any money from writing fanfiction!

A/N: I'm incredibly sorry that it took me so long to update this story. I knew I'd take a while since I'm currently quite busy with University and about to move abroad in a few weeks, but I would never have thought that I would actually take _that_ long. While I will try to update sooner from now on, I'm not talking of a new-chapters-once-a-week kind of rhythm. But it will be quicker, I'm relatively sure of that.

Secondly, I would like to thank everybody who wrote a review to the first chapter. This being only my second story on this site, I was quite overwhelmed by the amount of reviews I got and I loved every single one of them! I'm somewhat worried that this chapter is going to be a disappointment compared to the previous one though, so I compulsively re-wrote vast parts of it over and over again. Sorry it's such a short one again, even though I intended to make it longer and have more happen. However, I've already gotten started on chapter 3 and hope that it won't take as long to finish.

I hope you like it, though!

* * *

**Chapter Two: Common Purpose**

* * *

Thus Freedom now so seldom wakes,

The only throb she gives,

Is when some heart indignant breaks,

To show that still she lives!

[Thomas Moore, _The Harp That Once Through Tara's Halls_]

* * *

His head snapped up the moment he spotted Gibbs approaching the bullpen. Nevertheless his fingers kept typing almost frantically, just so he wouldn't have to give up whatever this was, even though he had already forgotten what he was doing exactly. His thoughts were nothing but a mess and Gibbs had left to interrogate Ziva with the instruction to _find something_. He hadn't found anything though, especially since a part of him was still hoping that none of this actually happened but would turn out to be nothing but a disturbing dream.

The long chain of random letters and numbers continued on the screen as his eyes and attention were fully on his boss. "Got anything new from her?"

A paper cup of freshly brewed coffee, only half of which had been drunk, was angrily tossed into the trashcan and more than enough of an answer.

He almost didn't dare asking, but at the same time couldn't resist. "That bad?"

The reply turned out exactly as gruff as expected. "Where's DiNozzo?"

"Back at the scene to oversee the FBI. Like... like you told him to, boss."

"Right", Gibbs mumbled, and sat down behind his desk where he angrily hit the keyboard until the computer in front of him woke up from the standbye mode in which he remained for most of the time. Once the monitor lit up he ceased from it though and began to pile up seemingly random files in front of him. "Right. So... what'd ya got, McGee?"

"Ehm... I don't know-"

"What do you mean, you _don't know_?"

"T-there's nothing to start from, boss. We know barely anything at all except what we've been told, it's... it's not even our investiagion-"

"She's one of us so it _is_ our own damn case to work!", Gibbs cut McGee off sharply as his subordinate helplessly stuttered, feeling as if he was digging a hole for himself. How do you explain that there's little you can do, when all you want to do is... _something?_

"That's not what I meant. We just don't have _anything_ so there's... well, there really isn't much I could search for so there's nothing I found and I can't tell you anything except that there's nothing suspicious in her NCIS e-mail account. You... ehm, you've just talked to her, so what have _you_ got?"

"She... she confessed." Gibbs' voice was much more calm now. It was worrying McGee immensely -way more than his boss' previous snubbing at him- because it meant that Gibbs wasn't as sure of himself. But Gibbs, he thought, followed his guts, his instincts. And instincts weren't doubtful.

"Well, she is... we could talk to her tomorrow again, when everyone's calmed down a little. Take a deep breath, give it some thought, you know? Maybe... the world's going to look different tomorrow and it will just... work out."

"You think giving it_ some thought_ can make this any better, McGee? You _really_ think so?"

"Boss, she's... she's lying, you know that too, right? She's simply not telling us the truth-"

"Why would she lie to us?"

At -50°Celsius it's cold enough for the water vapor that emerges from our mouths as we breathe out to freeze in mid-air and to solidly fall to the ground. The sound that those tiny icycles make is known as the _whisper of the stars_. McGee inwardly shivered at the question and its dizzying understatement.

"So you really think she _killed_ somebody? That's Ziva we're talking about, she's just not-"

He dried off mid-sentence and swallowed hard when another thought struck him. Gibbs and Ziva had both executed people for a living. When they had been instructed to take a life, they had carried out their jobs. That Ziva could have gone back to torturing people, even if it were innocent ones this time, was a terrible idea but -as much as it hurt to admit it- there were more unbelievable ones. McGee had never even given much thought to it before. Ninja-jokes and allusions to torture were... well, they had never been more than _jokes_; humorous scoffings among friends. It was easy to forget that all of them probably contained a quantum of truth, as all things did, and the truth was that people's lives had taken terrible ends.

So he decided that he didn't _want_ to believe and deny all reasonable doubt. Screw objectivity, she was his friend. And his friends didn't commit such crimes.

"She _was_ a killer, but that's different, right? People do that all the time. She has changed."

Roughly seven hours ago the world as he had known it had begun to go down the drain a little bit. Early in the morning -if not rather in the middle of the night as it hadn't been past 3:30 am- his cell phone had played _A Hard Day's Night_ and it had been Gibbs, telling him the unbelievable. He had never heard of the Buckleys before, but learned that they had been a middle-class family of four that had been found in their apartment in Petworth, tortured and executed in a concerningly professional manner. It seemed that they had been ordinary people; the children attending their local elementary school at which their mother used to teach a sixth-grade class and coached the girl's softball team while her husband worked as the manager of a small deli close by. As for right now it seemed they had never done anything dangerous, neither been involved in illegal activities nor kept any secrets that usually killed people those ways... and yet their pup dog was the only survivor.

Why they had died the way they had remained unclear to the NCIS team, but it really wasn't any of their business.

The only reason why the FBI had eventually taken over the lead of the investigations from the MPDC was the element of torture and a possible connection to another execution in West Virginia three weeks ago. It was considered rather unlikely theory, but they weren't willing to take that risk for it had basically happened at their doorstep. They just wouldn't ignore this, and neither would the public.

But nothing -absolutely nothing at all- about this was an NCIS case. Except for one detail.

Ziva had been there. A neighbor had found the Buckley's door wide open and called the police. When the two MPDC officers had arrived, Ziva had already been waiting for them, identified herself and confessed to everything. The officers had arrested her and invoked a CSU team to secure the crime scene. Their fights with Special Agent Tobias C. Fornell over whose case this would be had been vain, and at the end of the day it had been this very investigator who had decided to call Vance, who had passed the news on to Gibbs.

Who had called McGee and Tony. Who still found themselves unable to believe that this was actually happening.

"I don't know", Gibbs eventually answered, "we'll see."

"Abby is checking the records on her cell phone and tries to trace every call she recieved in the last 24 hours. Most of them will be us, so let's hope she'll find something quickly."

Wait a moment, he told himself, beginning to question his own stream of thinking. Was that right? _She won't find something_... would be better, wouldn't it? But then again, it wouldn't clear Ziva off the suspicions either. The chances that they would dig up any evidence that suggested another perpetrator and disproved her confessions were rather low. How often did things like this happen, really?_  
_

McGee let out a long sigh and opened his e-mail account. "I'll check if she's made any progress yet."

When he received no answer, he looked up to see if Gibbs had heard the question, but his boss was already gone again.

* * *

Sources:

The Harp that Once Through tara's Halls: .de/ books?id=ENdgFkCgU3gC&printsec =frontcover&hl= de#v=onepage& q&f=false (page 174)

The Whisper of the Stars: basic-facts- about-russia/ climate/

A Hard day's Night: youtube watch?v= 70QfHtKdh_0


	3. Quagmire

A/N: Okay, so here is the next chapter. It's longer than the previous ones, but I keep feeling as if it's more of a fill-in nevertheless. Just some facts to bild up the case.

Thanks for the reviews I got for the last chapter! I really appreciated them. Thank you to everybody who put the story as favorite or follows it, too. It feels truly awesome!

On an unrelated note, I have no idea how to feel about Cote DePablo leaving the show! I can't say that I mind _that_ much, because I hated to see how they were getting so heavy on Tiva, and Ziva got softer (and a little lame) ever since season 8. At least I thought to. ^^ So it's probably a good time to leave the show, which is probably stretched to its limites now. And since she's still going to have a few guest appearances they most likely won't kill her, or have her leave with a "bang".

My guess: They take the cowardly way out, make an official Ziva/Tony couple, Ziva gets pregnant, takes some time off and then doesn't return but decides to something calm and peaceful. This doesn't really fit in with the season finale... but who knows. Or maybe something really shocking happens, and she decides to settle down someplace - which would be equally boring. But those are just my two pennies.

Disclaimer: I recently lost a TV show, since I own so many of them that I don't even know where some of them are! If you find it, please contact me to give it back. I know it misses me, even though we had our share of problems. It doesn't respond to _NCIS_, though. I still don't own that one.

"Fire and Ice" was written by Robert Frost and published in the _Harper's Magazine_ in 1920.

* * *

**Quagmire**

* * *

_I think I know enough of hate_

_To say that for destruction ice_

_Is also great_

_And would suffice. _

- Robert Frost

* * *

Abby had taken the news rather well. She was calm... or not considerably more twirly than she was on normal days. After Gibbs had left, McGee had gone up to her lab, mostly for he didn't know what to do in the bulpen, and didn't want to be alone, either. he had found Abby steeped in paperwork and old files. The FBI hadn't sent any of their samples over yet, and she seemed just as uncomfortable doing nothing relevant to Ziva's case as McGee did.

So they had slowly, unwillingly but well-aware that it _needed_ to be done, taken on the task of gathering evidence and, because they hadn't known where else to start from, concentrated on how _Ziva_ fit into all of it. The earlier they got started, the earlier they'd be able to find a piece that didn't fit, and prove her innocent, and go back to normal...

It were blatant lies they soothed each other with, they knew this, and lame excuses made up in rder to justify their betrayal. But betrayal still seemed better than pure inaction.

"Our own security cameras show that Ziva left the parking lot at 22:45 yesterday night. She passed a speed trap twenty-two minutes later, so she was probably home around a quarter past eleven. A neighbor called 911 today, at 1:26, and she was arrested at 1:35, so there's overall a 140 minute time slot we need to explain. Given that it was night and there wasn't much traffic, the drive to Petworth probably took her ten minutes, give or take, but she went past one radar trap and didn't get clocked that time, and one patrol car. The officers remember hers because she tailgated them, but wasn't going over speedlimit and they were about to finish their shift."

Her voice had steadied noticably during the explanation, and was free of any tremblings by the time she finished. She could always cling to the mere facts, because they were innocent. They alone weren't a judgement, they would never tell lies, but always -always- reveal the truth and only that.

"When did that happen?", McGee answered, also as matter-of-factly as he could.

Two scientists in the face of chaos, he thought and faintly smiled to himself. As confusing as talking to a -as it seemed- relatively composed Abby _now_ was, it was definitely easier than being with a doubtful Gibbs.

"They don't remember. Some time past ten fifteen, but they aren't sure. Could have been half past just as well."

"So that leaves us with 130 minutes."

"Yes... yes, exactly. But she got a call at_ twenty-five_ past eleven from a disposable cell phone which lasted only fifteen seconds."

McGee raised his brows and looked at the monitor, where Abby had loaded the file showing Ziva's phone records, as if to check that she hadn't mis-read anything. He was still hell-bent to believe nothing that others -be it even Abby- told him, except the things he saw with his own eyes. She was correct. "You think it's suspicious?"

"No, I... I don't know that, McGee. It's an _assumption_, but the number has _never_ shown up in the recods before and when I tried to call, nobody picked up and it's probably shut off or the batery is dead, because I can't trace it either-" She suddenly interrupted herself, noticing that she had begun to ramble, and took a deep breath, followed by a long sip of CafPow!. "But say... say it _does_ matter and had something to do with her driving into Petworth - that would take another ten minutes off."

"Still two hours missing."

"We don't have access to the evidence found at the crime scene yet, and Ducky won't be performing the autopsy so we'll have to wait for the results of that, too. Doctor Sato from the Coroner's Office is going to do it... she's alright, I met her on a symposium on forensic entomology last year. We'll get everything we need and she's pretty good - new to it, but still good." Abby shrugged, suddenly feeling very displaced as all they could do from now on was wait for others to hand them what they needed. "Tony might still find something and we could go there after they're all finsihed... look at things from a new perspective, and... Gibbs will come up with something, too, right?" Her eyes lit up at the mentioning of Gibbs, but darked only a second later when they fell of McGee's face, which had grown even more worried.

"He's going to find the answer", she said in an assuring tone, "don't you _ever_ doubt that, McGee!"

"Yes, sure", he murmured and coughed shortly before he went on in a clearer voice, "except for you... well, and Kate, we've all been there and it... it always turned out find back then, so why not this time, too?"

The question was purely rethorical, because Abby was neither going to look at the situation this way -at least not on purpose-, nor to say the reasonable worries out loud so soon, and McGee just couldn't bear to talk about it now. The vast difference was that it were dead children they were talking about and young victims always changed everything, especially for Gibbs. _Why not this time?_ was to be answered with the inevitable _Why would he stick by somebody who had already confessed to having torured a son and a daughter?_

Had she denied it, things would look a lot different now. Ziva would have been as good as absolutely sure to have Gibbs' backing until proven guilty with all the utmost amount of facts and motives that the investigators could possibly find. Of course, Gibbs would've done everything he could to catch whoever did this, and so would have the rest of the, given that they would have somehow crossed paths with Fornell during that time, but Ziva's confession to having comitted the felony made this investigation more depressing than it would have been under different circumstances and added a dismally air of hopelesness. She got out of _a lot_ of things that she had actually done. If she got not only caught, but freely confessed right away, that their investiagtions would end in a totally different result was more than unlikely, it seemed.

"She didn't do this." McGee's voice was low and slightly coarse, and he was speaking to himself rather than to Abby, in dire need of reminding himself of this simple fact. "There's no way on earth she actually did _this_."

"We're going to find something. We always have."

"Some things work a thousand times perfectly well before they suddenly fail."

Gibbs asking _Why would she lie to us?_ echoed through his head and he nervously searched his mind for an acceptable answer. _There is no valid reason, so maybe she isnÄt telling a lie_ was definitely not one. Before McGee could get quite worked up over the question though, which tenaciously came back into his mind every time he thought to have driven it away, an incoming call delivered him from his distress. He took a quick glance at his smartphone. "It's Tony."

* * *

It all began as a dull, faint throbbing in the back of his head. He hadn't done anything to provoke it, except maybe worked too long, but sometimes you just can't do anything against these things. Maybe he should've gone to have a drink, he thought, so feeling like a piece of living crap would actually be worth it. But whatever the causes had been, the initial discomfort had grown into a full-grown headache by the time he stood in the midst of a crime scene that would give every healthy person a more than hard time already.

Four chairs stood in the middle of the spacious living room, two by two facing each other. The victims' bodies had been removed from the scene once everything had been neatly documented, as well as the cable ties and synthetic ropes they had been boud with, but their blood had soaked the eggshell-colored carpet and the sheer amount spoke volumes of what must have happened here.

By now, the room was cramped with CSU staff and their equipment, FBI Agents who were busy photographing and mapping every detail they bounced upon before it could be destroyed by one of their collegues, two remaining MPDC detectives who made sure the FBI wouldn't entirely push them out of the investigation... and Tony, who was allowed to be here by a surprizing gesture of goodwill. That Gibbs had told _him_ to come to the crime scene had taken him almost as roughly off-guard as the news of Ziva's arrest, and he wasn't sure that he deemed it a good idea.

What was there to do for him, really?

What people could do to each other wasn't new to him, but what his friends were probably capable of doing... well, _that_ was, at least to some extend.

No, he did _not_ want to be here. But then again, you shouldn't _want_ to investigate family murders, anyways.

"Special Agent DiNozzo? Is there somebody here-?"

At the sound of his name, Tony turned around. "That would be me."

A woman -probably about his age, and overall fairly pretty- stood in the entrance of the living room, quickly scanning everyone in there with piercing eyes. Not too eager to meet her, Tony resorted to doing them same. Slim figure, dark hair, with naturally pale but somewhat sun-tanned skin. She was athletic, he noticed, and if they had met under different circumstance he would have most certainly made a pass for her. Needless to say that this was out of question now. She approached him with a faint smile which, despite the situation, didn't seem out of place.

"There you are! I've been looking for you all over the place."

"So you're Fornell's profiler?"

She nodded and held out her hand. "Indeed, that would be me. Lisa Jones, with the Behavioral Analysis Unit."

"Anthony DiNozzo." He shortly shook her hand, but slid his' into his pocket only a second later. "NCIS."

"So, you're a friend of the suspect?", she asked in a casual tone that offended him nevertheless.

"I'm here as in investigator." His answer came quick and rough and too snappy as to attest the purely professional purpose he claimed.

"Hm... alright." She nodded slowly, pensively biting her lower lip. "Do you wanna hear what I've got so far? Agent Fornell said it'd be okay with him, since the circumstances are... unusual for you guys, I suppose. They aren't my official results, though. Just first impressions." She added the last two sentences after a short pause, as if to make sure there were no misapprehensions.

"I understand." He made sure to sound as calm as possible this time. "That would be great."

"So, I was thinking that... wait a moment, could we sit down anywhere?" Wordlessly, he crossed the room and the adjoining hallway, to take place at the kitchen table, and so did the profiler. She had seemingly taken a couple of notes on a pocket-size scratchpad, but even though she took a quick glance at it before starting to talk, it didn't escape Tony's attention that she was hiding her writings from him. "Okay, so there are a few inconsistencies I came across that will have to be explained sooner or later."

_Yeah, like Ziva showing up at the crime scene_, he thought and realized that he had said the words out loud when it was already too late.

Agent Jones continued without aknowledging the interruption. Tony was rather sure that she was analyzing the crap out of him, but at least she didn't show it and he was bound to be biased, anyways, so no conclusion that she could possibly draw would make matters worse for _him_.

"They were tortured and -although I must point out that the pathologist made very clear that those results aren't final at all- even though they all died within a close time range, the _parents_ were killed first -probably even the father- and she estimated that the _son_ was the last one to die. His death was also the most... gentle of all, if you will. His parents suffered severe visible injuries and so did his sister, but there is, as for right now, no evidence suggesting that he sustained any physical injury until the moment of his death. So I don't think the purpose of torturing them was to extract information, since most likely the parents would've had those and then the children would have been killed in front of the parents as a method of torture."

Tony nodded as she spoke, trying hard to make sense of this. Ziva had tortured people in the past, there was no sense in denying that, but she had done so as part of her _work_ for Mossad. Intelligence agencies had political or military, occasionally maybe even economical, interests - but they always were after _information_, weren't they? She had been trained to make people talk, and to be efficient. This family, however, hadn't died to keep a secret.

"Obviously, they had to be gagged. From what I have been told so far, the neighbors didn't hear a lot of noise, but torturing people _is_ a noisy business. We found a bunch of wet cleaning rags behind one of the chairs. The test results aren't back yet, but if the moist turns out to be saliva that's likely what they were gagged with. So the perpetrator had enough sense to make sure the neighbors wouldn't hear anything suspicious, but took a higher risk by using what he or she found at the scene. There may not be suitable items to gag people with available in all households, and since the perpetrator cannot know what _exactly_ those items are in advance, he can't be entirely sure whether something will prove effective or not. However, there are gags available for purchase and getting them shouldn't be much of a difficulty."

Tony gladly picked up on the male personal pronoun. "Couldn't... couldn't _he_ just have threatened one family member, say one of the children, to keep the others quiet?"

"I think that's how it started, but holding a gun to you wife's head isn't gonna keep you quiet once somebody's pushing a knife through your cheeks." Her explanation was very matter-of-factly but, as Tony realized now, so was everything else about her. The looks she gave him were sufficiently sympathetic to engage him in her thinking processes and keep his anger as low as possible, but she was as distant to him as she was to everyone else in the apartment nevertheless. She spoke as openly as to make him f_eel_ involved, and just so colloquial that he eased up, but the truth was that he wouldn't have been able to tell if she had just lied to him. "At the door, there's very little evidence of forced entry, suggesting that the offender has not only a lot of experience but also the motor skills it takes to open a locked door like this, but it's still enough to indicate that hedidn't know the family at all, or at least they didn't open the door to him."

"Then why was the door wide open? One ought to think that a picklock-savant remembers to close the door behind himself."

"I don't know yet. As I said, there are vast inconsisencies showing at the crime scene. On one hand, the perpetrator is clearly _very_ skilled and somewhat prepared - you don't open a safety lock just like that, but bring the tools with you. Then again, there are aspects that would point towards somebody disorganized, almost plain lazy - the removal of the gags, the open door, the focus on the children. None of this serves a reasonable purpose and points towards personal motives. There's no need for an emotional connection if it's _just_ about information."

For a moment, the thought that this didn't sound like Ziva at all crossed his mind, and the feeling of relief was overwhelming. She _knew_ how to make people talk. She _knew_ how to inflict so much pain that they'd tell her everything she asked and even more than that. They'd probably sell their own mother to her. _1984_, to make an unfunny allusion for once. Ziva had once named it in a list of Tim Burton movies.

Only moments later, she crushed his sudden hopes rather violently. "Overall, it's the type of behavior I'd expect to find in a well-trained, athletic male with a military background in his early 30s who suffered a psychotic break."

"So I guess you'll talk to Ziva later."

She nodded. "I don't have enough history with Agent Fornell to understand _why_ he's cooperating with you guys that much, but I'm scheduled to meet her at NCIS this afternoon. We're practically neigbors, anyways, so it's not even an inconvenience."

"Alright." Tony stood up without further comments and turned to leave the kitchen. "I guess I'll see you then."

"Wait! Where are you going?"

He stopped shortly and slgithly raised an eyebrow. "Fornell might be cooperating with us, but I'm sure as hell not gonna tell you what _our own _investigations lead us to."

He was talking nonsense and he knew it. But as he left the apartment and went to his car, blindly operating his smartphone in the meanwhile, he felt... well, not _better_. But at least up to the challenge.

* * *

Sources:

NCIS Headquarters: .mil /AboutNCIS /Locations/HQ

maps. google .com

I don't know how much information concerning Ziva's apartment was recently mentioned on the show, but I don't recall that it was a whole lot. In 3x19, "Iced", Ziva and McGee are said to live in Silver Springs, but since her apartment was blown up and everything, she could've moved everywhere, I guess. So I just placed her in Georgetown, DC. According to _Google Maps_, the quickest route to take from NCIS Headquarters to Georgetown is 36.6 miles long and via the I-95 N, taking approximately 45 minutes.

The route Georgetown - Petworth (for both of which I did not use a specific address in _Google Maps_) is 5 miles long and takes about 16 minutes if you take the Beach Dr NW.

Fire and Ice: .poemhunter poem /fire-and-ice/

1984 (book written by George Orwell in 1948, movie dirceted by Michael Radford in 1984 ): .imdb title /tt0087803/


End file.
